Sony Sells 74 Million PS4s, But The Nintendo Switch Should Catch It Someday

Paul Tassi
, ContributorNews and opinion about video games, technology and the internetOpinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

Nintendo

Nintendo Switch

Sony, which loves announcing PS4 sales every chance it gets, has come out to say that after 5.9 million units sold in the 2017 holiday season, the PS4 is now up to 73.6 million sales. Those holiday numbers are a tiny bit down from last year, but 2017 has so far been the peak year for PS4 sales, and more games than ever have been sold with the system now too.

Sony has recently passed the Nintendo 3DS to be the 10th best-selling video game system of all time, though so far, it’s still behind its other three models including #7 PS3 (83.8 million), #4 PS1 (102.49 million) and #1 PS2 (155+ million), though it seems likely it will move up a few more spaces before all is said and done.

Microsoft, meanwhile, is continuing its policy of never talking about specific Xbox sales, lately only being content to say that Xbox One X sales have exceeded their expectations and have outsold past models in terms of the speed they’ve flown off shelves. Common estimates usually put Xbox One sales at about half or less of what PS4 has sold this generation.

And then there’s Nintendo.

This is a tricky generation, because for years, the Wii U was Nintendo’s entry into the “current” gen, but with 13 million sales, it was trounced by everyone. But now, Nintendo has done a total 180 with the Switch, and with 5 million sales in 10 months, it’s the fastest selling console in US history, besting the original Wii’s 4 million sales over the same time period. I believe it’s already outsold the Wii U worldwide.

So, Nintendo has a new console, but we’re technically still in the same generation with Sony and Microsoft extending its length with the PS4 Pro and the Xbox One X. But even though by units, Nintendo is still far behind both other companies, the long term future of the Switch looks bright.

Nintendo

The Nintendo Switch

If Nintendo can keep outpacing the Wii, that means we’re heading to a console with easily over 100 million sales in its lifespan. It may take 5, 6, 7 years, or however long Nintendo makes the console, but it certainly seems like Nintendo is on track for sky-high numbers.

I think the Switch is in a much stronger position than the Wii ever was. No, it might not exactly be the “non-gamers are buying it” fad the Wii was, but the Wii was just that, a fad. Fundamentally, it was not a very good console. Yes, it had a few great games, and titles like Wii Sports made it a megahit, but there wasn’t much to it past that, and the central motion control gimmick fell flat for so many other titles after that.

The Switch is much stronger now, and should be in the future as well:

The portability gimmick is a useful feature and will not get old the way motion controls did.

The Switch is essentially Nintendo’s new handheld as well as its new home console, so sales will increase from that positioning as well.

The Switch already boasts two of the best games of the past decade in Breath of the Wild and Mario Odyssey.

The Switch has no shortage of megahits still to come, including the next generation of Pokémon games which will be developed for the console.

While the PS4 will continue to sell, we are definitely in the latter half of its lifecycle at this point. The Switch is likely to keep selling once Sony has moved on to the PS5 in a few years, or whatever it ends up being, and tallies will start all over again. And please, no one say “video game consoles are dying” this time around.

It’s really good news all around here. Sony has an all-time best-selling console, Nintendo is on pace to produce a record-breaking system and Microsoft well, they seem happy enough with their own metrics, I suppose. Which of the three is your favorite to date?